The present disclosure relates to an image acquisition apparatus that acquires an image by using a microscope, and to an image acquisition method and a computer program.
In a pathological diagnosis, a high-definition image of a biological sample is used. Such a high-definition image is obtained by magnifying a biological sample such as a tissue slice at a predetermined magnification. In this regard, there is proposed a microscope apparatus that divides an area in which a biological sample is present into a plurality of small areas, magnifies the plurality of small areas at a predetermined magnification and then images the areas to acquire divisional images, and couples the plurality of divisional images to one another to generate a high-definition image of the biological sample.
Further, a certain area of the biological sample is imaged at a plurality of focal positions at intervals of several μm, and the images thus obtained are visualized. A set of images captured by the microscope under conditions of different focal positions is called a “Z stack” (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-500643).